Drug Kingpin Sentenced to 8 Years in Major French Trafficking Case

Montacer Meziani appeared free on Monday before the Bobigny correctional court. For health reasons, the 37-year-old man had not attended the first trial of this vast drug trafficking case, which took place in May, and during which his brother, Aziz, had been sentenced by default to ten years in prison and two million euros in fines. On the run in Morocco, he has been the subject of an international arrest warrant since October 2011, reports France 3.

The prosecutor requested nine years in prison and a one million euro fine against Montacer Meziani, as well as a five-year ban from the Normandy territory. The defendant had already spent nearly three years in pre-trial detention before being evacuated for health reasons. "Today, it is extremely difficult for him to envisage a return to detention given his past detention conditions. It should be known that when the trial began in June, he was neither standing nor sitting. He was forced to lie down in his cell after an extremely heavy operation. His current state of health is absolutely not consolidated. Detention conditions will be extremely complicated for him," explains his lawyer, Me El Atrassi.

The case dates back to September 2019, when the Meziani brothers, Aziz and Montacer, were arrested by the Saint-Denis police following an investigation opened after the seizure of 50,000 euros in cash and two kilos of cocaine. Aziz, 40, is considered the leader of the criminal network, and Montacer, 37, as his right-hand man, in charge of managing this trafficking. During the trial on Monday, the latter admitted that "there was trafficking, I acknowledge certain things, but I do not acknowledge the role they attribute to me." His lawyer, Me Vigier, develops: "When we look at all the elements, what we understand is that he has no decision-making power. Of course, he is associated with a lot of things, of course he is aware of it, he sometimes even benefits from this system, he intervenes in his own way which is quite residual..."

Montacer denies any active involvement in this vast drug trafficking network (cocaine, heroin and cannabis) which he and his brother Aziz inherited from their elder brother in 2019. This drug trafficking between Belgium, the Netherlands, Morocco, Spain and Brazil would have generated a turnover of 15 million euros between September 2019 and October 2021. During the first trial in May, the court had acquitted the former mayor of Canteleu (Seine-Maritime), Mélanie Boulanger, and sentenced her deputy, Hasbi Col